Chinese port cranes allegedly spied on US freight operators

The United States is concerned that Chinese port cranes are being used to spy in American ports, writes The Wall Street Journal. High – ranking officials within the US security services and the Pentagon compare the harbor cranes to the Trojan horse.

The port cranes are said to have advanced sensors that can register and track the origin and destination of containers. The US is therefore concerned that China is collecting information on equipment for US military operations worldwide.

According to the AD, the cranes of the China-based manufacturer ZPMC are also in the European ports. They have a lifting height of 56 meters and can load containers up to 26 rows wide on board ships. ZPMC owns around 70 percent of the global port crane market and has sold cranes in more than a hundred countries.

”The taps could be the new Huawei,” former US top counterintelligence official Bill Evanina tells The Wall Street Journal. “It’s the perfect combination of a legal product that can mask espionage.

“The products of the Chinese tech giant Huawei are banned from the US, although Huawei denies in all tones that they pose a threat to national security.

An employee of the Chinese Embassy in Washington says that the US concerns about the port cranes stem from paranoia and are intended to thwart trade and economic cooperation with China. According to him, the theory about the Chinese threat is “irresponsible” and will “harm the interests of the US itself.”

Tensions between the United States and China have risen sharply in recent weeks over an alleged Chinese spy balloon over American territory. President Joe Biden decided to shoot down the balloon off the East Coast of the state of South Carolina, while China insists that it was a weather balloon that went off course.